Organisasie-innovasie vir omgewingsbestuur

Abstract:

The complexity of environmental problems and the demands that these make on organisations to create integrated management outcomes in a participative way in a multilevel context with many role-players, have highlighted the search for new innovative organisational forms. Organisations have specific structural characteristics with regard to complexity, formalisation and (de)centralisation that correspond with their core activities and their external circumstances. The traditional bureaucracy, as an organisational structure, is a rigid and hierarchical system that is based on formal rules, complex management systems and centralised decision-making. The spread of postmodernism highlighted the restrictions of bureaucracies and started a process, throughout the world, that is transforming organisations into flatter, less formal structures. The focus of this study was to determine to which extent organisations in the field of sustainable development adapt to new realities and experiment with innovative organisational forms. "Greenpeace", as an international environmental organisation, a "Representative Forum", as an Agenda 21 type institutional mechanism for interest groups in the integrated development planning processes at local government level, and "Water Catchment Management Agencies", as organisational institutional form for the integrated management of all aspects with regard to water resources, were analysed as case studies. The case studies confirm the increase in and application of multilevel network type organisational forms in the field of natural resources management. It highlights a common vision, processes that work towards reaching consensus and the forming of partnerships. The rise of the network organisation, its advantages and potential problems, are finally discussed with a view to the future.